The Boggart and the Monster by Susan Cooper Read Free Book Online Page B

Keep.
    â€œ
Is fada fuar an oidhche a bh’ann,
”
it said.
“
Tha feum oirnn cupan teatha gasda teth.
”
    There was silence again, except for the gulls crying faintly, out over the loch.
    â€œHe’s talking again!”
Jessup said softly
“It’s amazing! He never used to do that. That’s Gaelic, isn’t it? What did he say?”
    Tommy was grinning. He picked up the brimming bucket of water.
“It wasn’t a game, just for once. He says it was a long cold night. He says we need water for a nice hot cup of tea.”
    *  *  *
    T HEY CAME BLINKING out into the daylight from the Loch Ness Tourist Centre, where films and photographs and models had given them an exhaustive survey of the sightings of the Loch Ness Monster. Before them, the road ran along the length of the loch; the water glinted under patchy sunshine. Tommy had a handful of leaflets, and was peering at them crossly.
    â€œLot of rubbish,”
he said, scowling.
    â€œIt does seem to me,”
said Mr. Maconochie mildly,
“that there was a remarkably long gap between St. Columba seeing a monster in the year five sixty-five A.D. , and all those reports of sightings in the early nineteen-thirties.”
    â€œBut that was just the newspapers,”
Jessup said.
“People have been seeing monsters for centuries, there just weren’t any papers to write about them.”
    â€œMonsters?”
said Emily.
“Plural?”
    â€œHarold says there’s a family. And there must be, because one single creature could never have survivedthis long. The parent plesiosaur dies, and then people see the next generation and think it’s the same one.”
    Tommy waved a leaflet at him.
“This was the only plesiosaur picture, right? The famous one, with the long neck? And then in nineteen ninety-one the man who took it confessed he’d really photographed a model, made from plastic wood stuck on a toy submarine from Woolworth. Just another hoax!”
    Emily looked at him unhappily. His Scottish accent was suddenly very marked, and his blue eyes bright with passionate disbelief. She was not accustomed to having her brother and Tommy furiously disagree; it made her nervous.
    â€œYou need to meet Harold,”
Jessup said obstinately.
    They all turned to look at the long windowless rectangular building set in the parking lot beside the Tourist Centre. It was labeled
“Kalling-Pindle Research Project,”
and it had been locked and silent when they arrived. Now, a big door at one end stood open, with a four-step stairway jutting down from it, and a bicycle was leaning against its wall.
    Jessup ran over to the open door.
“Harold?”
he called. But there was no answer from inside.
    The Boggart rose from his comfortable seat on Mr. Maconochie’s broad, unwitting shoulder, and flittered in through the trailer door. He found a jungle of wires and small glowing screens, in a narrow corridor that linked three spaces like small rooms. Each room held a desk with a bank of instruments and larger screens. Venturing into the third and furthest room, he bumpedinto a chunky young man wearing shorts, a black T-shirt with the sleeves torn off, and earphones. The black T-shirt was decorated across the chest in large white letters with the words MEAN MAN.
    The young man spluttered, and wiped a hand over his face as if brushing off a cobweb. Caught unawares, the Boggart rolled head over heels in the air and reeled giddily back down the little corridor, passing Jessup, who was now standing inside the trailer calling tentatively,
“Harold?”
    â€œHarold’s not here,”
said the young man, firmly blocking Jessup’s way. He had a nasal American accent, and a rather high voice in spite of the bulging biceps revealed by the torn-off sleeves. He looked down past Jessup at Tommy, Emily and Mr. Maconochie.
“This trailer’s private,”
he added.
    The Boggart flittered upward